We just voted by mail in the Minnesota elections, but it may be more difficult in November: Trump is openly trying to suppress votes.
President Trump says the U.S. Postal Service is incapable of facilitating mail-in voting because it cannot access the emergency funding he is blocking, and made clear that requests for additional aid were nonstarters in coronavirus relief negotiations.
Trump, who has been railing against mail-in balloting for months, said the cash-strapped agency’s enlarged role in the November election would perpetuate “one of the greatest frauds in history.” Speaking Wednesday at his daily pandemic news briefing, Trump said he would not approve $25 billion in emergency funding for the Postal Service, or $3.5 billion in supplemental funding for election resources, citing prohibitively high costs.
The only reason it’s “cash-strapped” is that Republicans have been ham-stringing the postal service for decades, and now they’re preparing to simply destroy the whole institution so they can rig the vote. They really hate democracy, don’t they?
Kind fo reminds me of that one “F is for family” episode where the voters were suppressed by disabling the busses…
This is an important story that is now in the news almost every day.
It’s even effecting me right now!!!
Where is my package!!!
I ordered a small item on Etsy from someone in the UK over a month ago.
Normally, shipping from the UK is fast, a few days longer than the USA, maybe a week at the most.
It was shipped several weeks ago.
It hasn’t arrived yet.
I’m about to give up on it ever coming.
Another reason why Trump and the GOP are negatives for my life and the USA.
Fascists always hate democracy. It is only a handy tool for them to get close enough to power to grab it and never let go unless forced.
I am afraid that Trump will “win” this election “fair and square” no matter what votes are going to be cast and how.
It hasn’t been helped by lobbyist/Congressional corruption. Is it coincidence that, over the years, Congresscritters from Atlanta and Memphis have been at the fore of efforts to limit the USPS? (Consider the “private courier” services headquartered there for just a moment.) Or that they’ve done so with “blame the greedy unions!” tactics by forcing the USPS to do something that literally no other unionized organization — private or “government” corporation — has to do: Currently fund every penny of future potential pension and healthcare costs at a discount-to-present-value rate above the current inflation rate?
It’s one thing to lobby for one’s constituents. It’s another entirely to actively sabotage the competition… especially when that competition is an ill-considered privatization of a constitutional power (Art. I § 7).
It also hasn’t been helped by the advertising industry forcing all other mail to subsidize its ads with the severe discount for “presorted” and “any occupant” mailings that jam up mailboxes. But that’s for another time.
Lots of people are going to be really shocked how many votes Trump is going to win by.
I find it not surprising but almost expected but never so blatant.
The head of the post office is a major investor in the the Post offices competition. His appointment could be seen as being bought and payed for, a win / win for him and agent orange. Who cares about the people or the country as long as they make profit!
uncle frogy
What are elected Democrats doing to fight this? What can we the people do to fight this?
…and meanwhile they spread desinformation about Jewish enemies financing the opposition.
George Soros turned 90 years wednesday. Born 1930 and a jew, he has nevertheless been accused of being a nazi collaborator by the foaming mouth brigade. Nothing is beneath them, certainly not a bit of election fraud.
There you are then. Everybody thought this president was completely ineffective, was ignoring emergencies, like pandemics, hurricanes and so forth, and would do nothing if not making things even worse. Nothing could be further from the truth. Now that a real emergency – one that affects him personally – has arisen, he’s all over if, with prevention, mitigation and all that stuff you’d want from a proactive crisis manager. (Maybe he’s even stockpiling votes ready for distribution to struggling states when the crisis really hits….*)
*Statement contains ~95% sarcasm
kome @7: Call your reps! Call your senators and representative (you can search their phone numbers) and leave them a voicemail saying you’re a constituent and you support the post office. If you call after ~5pm Eastern time you’re pretty much guaranteed to get voicemail if you’re not comfortable talking to a person directly.
And then convince your friends (and random internet strangers) to call as well.
According to people who have experience with this kind of stuff, CongressCritters use the number of calls they get about a topic as both a way of gauging interest and an argument to their colleagues.
We are now at the stage where Trump feels free to simply admit that he is defunding the post office as part of a tactic to prevent people voting, knowing that Fox has his back, and there will be no consequence (imaging if Obama had made such a statement). Shooting someone on Fifth Avenue? Sure, whatever, just one dead body. Subverting the whole process of the 2020 election on order to retain power? Sure, whatever, just one election.
“The USPS is shutting down mail-sorting machines crucial for processing absentee ballots as the 2020 election looms”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/markets/the-usps-is-shutting-down-mail-sorting-machines-crucial-for-processing-absentee-ballots-as-the-2020-election-looms/ar-BB17VBFL
@#7, kome
When the measure which created the USPS debt was before Congress — it was the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, in case you want to look it up — it passed the Senate unanimously (meaning that not only Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden but also Bernie Sanders voted for it) and although it apparently had some opposition in the House (somebody asked for a roll call) it still was so overwhelmingly popular that it passed by a voice vote. Blaming this mess on the Republicans is possibly morally fair, because this was a long-term plan of theirs, but the Democrats put up absolutely no fight, and went along with it without even the slightest dissent.
So among other things: don’t hold your breath hoping it will be overturned under Biden.
There is nothing in the constitution which would prevent Congress from impeaching a president more than once.
A lot of farmers where I live, most I would say, vote for Republicans.
I wonder if they have ever considered that the first thing to go once the socialist postal service is privatized will be rural delivery?
Don’t worry, guys. We’ll vote them out!
Oh….